I fell asleep that night thinking about the kiss that might have been. What did a kiss feel like, anyway? Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be like the one I got from Mom or Dad at bedtime. The same species, maybe, but a radically different beast, to be sure. Like a wolf and a whippet – only science would put them on the same tree.

To by held above the earth and be brushed by the wind," she said,"it's like your heart has been kissed by beauty.

You want me to be a man,older than you, who goes by the name of Roullard.

There was other stuff, too, like how something can be so much more than the parts it took to make it, and why people need things around them that lift them above their lives and make them feel the miracle of living.

And now I was seeing that there was something really cool about that family. All of them. They were just...real. And who were we? There was something spinning wickedly out of control inside this house. It was like seeing inside the Baker's world had opened up windows into our own, and the view was not a pretty one. Where had all this stuff come from? And why hadn't I ever seen it before.

Get beyond his eyes and his smile and the sheen of his hair - look at what's really there.

You can't dwell on what might have been...and it's not fair to condemn him for something he hasn't done.